


Feather for My Love

by HeatherGiesbrecht



Category: The Matrix (Movies)
Genre: Blood and Torture, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2336192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeatherGiesbrecht/pseuds/HeatherGiesbrecht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neo couldn't help gasping, Seraph...Seraph had his wings back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wings

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, Seraph was a seraphim program, but we’re just going to call them angels. Please enjoy.

Neo had just grabbed the teahouse door’s handle when pain lashed through his body. Shocked, he let go of the door and fell to the ground as the fiery pain spread through his RSI and settled between his shoulders. It felt like his bones were breaking as he curled in on himself and he held in a scream as he felt something ripping. _‘Go away, go away. God, where’s Seraph ? Oh, please, please let it end, love ?’_

He’d squeezed his eyes shut and then Seraph’s voice was echoing through something soft. It felt like there was a hand on his arm, but it was a lot softer than his arm and too far away. It freaked him out when he uncurled and muscles he didn’t know he had stretched and a pair of big, white feathered wings unfurled.

_‘How ? How can I glitch enough to get wings ? I’m a human, I shouldn’t be able to glitch at all. Seraph has to be able to help me, he has to be.’_

Then Seraph’s words filtered into his ears, “Are you wounded badly, brother ?”

It was hard to see the black-haired, tan-skinned A.I. through the heavy fog. When he waved his hands in front of his face, the wings, **his** wings flapped away some of the fog. As the fog cleared away, he gasped, Seraph…Seraph had his wings again. A single pair of black feathered wings framed Seraph, meanwhile they stood on the edge of a mountain.

_‘Dear God, his wings are beautiful. I mean, I always imagined they would be, but I never imagined they would be this beautiful. I just thought they’d be white or silver or something cheery.’_

Slowly, he pushed himself up and answered, “I-I don’t think s-so. W-why are your wings black ?”

The other man shook his head slightly before he whispered, “Those new Agents are close by, we must leave.”

_‘Agents ? Since when have Agents been new ? Why does Seraph suddenly have his wings back ? The one day when I asked him, he said they’d been cut off after he’d been exiled, so, how did he get them back ? Did…did I just time-travel or something ?’_

The thoughts confused and shook him, but he managed to keep calm enough to ask, “Ah, Seraph, how do I fly ?”

Seraph’s brown-eyes glowed, “You glitch enough to forget flight, but, not my name. You are an odd one.”

His gaze drifted into the code and past his love as Seraph’s wings folded. Down the mountain, he could see Smith as an Agent, along with the other two making their way up. For a second, he took a steadying breath and followed Seraph’s lead in running and jumping off the mountain.

When he tried to follow Seraph’s example of folding his wings before opening them again quickly, all he managed to do was plummet like a stone and crash into an actual snow-covered boulder. As he got up, on impulse he wrapped his wings around himself and peered through a small gap in his feather tips as Smith and the others approached. Nearly cursed aloud and froze even further as he saw blood droplets leading right towards him.

He shivered and his feathers rustled as Smith let out a dark-laugh, “Perhaps we did wound you after all, hmm, Seraph ?”

In response, he willed his wings open and as the bright-blue eyes were shocked he quipped, “Not quite, you missed again, Smith.”

Simply because he could, he launched himself at Smith and kicked the Agent in the face. A snarl as he turned away and found his wings flapping in broad-strokes towards Seraph who had flown back towards him. _‘God, I’ve hardly done anything, but I’m tired already. I hope wherever Seraph has in mind to go isn’t too far away.’_

Hissed as a bullet tore through his right wing and Seraph was grabbing his hand, pulling him higher into the air.

“Follow my wing beats as much as you can, if you cannot just let yourself drift.”

Smith’s voice echoed after them, “You will not escape, Neo Angelus, neither will Seraph. Your deletion is **inevitable** and when I find you, when I finally have you I’ll cut your pretty little wings off.”

_‘In a round about way he just called me Neo. Well, technically, he just called me ‘New angel’ why would he combine Greek and Latin just to call me that ? Technically, I haven’t even met him yet, if this is an earlier version of the Matrix, so he can’t hate me yet.’_

A half-turn later, he shouted back, “You might not remember, but I’ve escaped you plenty of times. So, you know what ? Fuck you, Smith !”

Another laugh echoed up to him, “Consider that challenge accepted, Neo.”, as himself and Seraph got even farther away.

Just when he thought he’d pass out, they landed on the unfamiliar roof of the unpleasantly familiar chateau of the Merovingian. The black-graying haired Merovingian stood waiting, while he sipped from a crystal glass of white wine, “Zo, you ‘ave ay‘rrived again, Mon de toute beauté aile, Zeraph. Vous apporter avec une beau visage.” *My beautiful wings* *You bring with a beautiful face.*

Though, he couldn’t understand a word of French, he recognized the lust filled look from back in Levrai. Simply put he was too exhausted to realize just when the Merovingian started kissing him, but when he did realize it was happening, he shoved the French-man away. Really, it shouldn‘t have surprised him that he was sworn at, it just surprised him when his wings flared in anger.

“Si vous voulez être à l'extérieur de vous baisant la merde plumeuse mes hommes vous prendront. Peu Dieu baisant merde.” *If you want to be outside you fucking feathery shit my men will take you. Little God fucking shit.*

Everything went black and when he woke up Seraph was leaning over him. The angelic program looked relieved, “Good, I am glad you awoke. Do you still wish to know what our wings mean ?”

Again, he pushed himself up and unlike any other time, Seraph leaned away from him. It hurt, ‘ _I can’t feel that way with him, for all he knows I’m just a random stranger. I’m not his lover, now.’_

When he said, “Please, Seraph.”, he noticed the man wore a blue version of his regular white jacket, but he still wore black-pants.

As Seraph talked his raven-black feathers ruffled and the beautiful wings mantled above the white queen bed, “White is the most common color for our wings, green is the second and black is the least common. The ones who have multiple colors on their wings are programmed to be able to do great things. Pearl-emerald is the lowest of the multi-wing, pearl-obsidian and emerald-obsidian are higher, but tri-wings are the highest of us. Either way, all of our wings when wrapped around ourselves have the capability to hide us from others if we so wish. Have you remembered your name ?”

Those words drifted through his head with a dawning yet surprisingly detached sense of horror. ‘ _Oh, God, oh God, when I got dragged into the Agency…I thought I saw something huge, something that was green, black and white mounted just below the ceiling. That’s why he suddenly had that weird smile on his face…he recognized me, he knew he’d taken my wings. I’m going to loose my wings before I even get used to them.’_

He felt dizzy and, unconsciously, his wings unfolded to steady himself as he muttered, “Just call me Neo, how’d you get that ass to take us in after I pushed him away ? He sounded pretty pissed off.”

“I will have the heart’s resolve to take his price for our stay. You are already injured and I would not be able to bear if you died because of him.”

Another thing clicked suddenly in his head. _‘I was jealous of myself, I was jealous of my own fucking self because he always said that he took those knife-scars, those whip-marks for a “Beautiful but amnesiac angel.” When he, when he really took those for me. I can’t believe Seraph let himself be scarred because he loved me. I can’t let him do that, it probably won’t work, but, I’ve got to try.’_

“You can’t, what if you get scarred or one of your wings breaks ? Seraph, what if you get hurt ? Let me do it, he wants me anyway.”

Seraph shook his head and looked about the airy, beige and gold-colored room. A hand cupped his chin, “I cannot let you, by your wings alone, you are worth more to the Matrix than I am. I am an obsidian-wing, but you are an obsidian-tri-wing and I need to protect you from as much as it is possible for me to do alone.”

“Who cares about wing colors ? What if my supposed worth proving event never happens ? What if you end up scarred for nothing ?”

“Then I will know that my heart’s resolve can last through any challenge. I know not why you care so deeply, the other obsidian-multi-wings would not care that I do this. Don‘t cry, I promise that I can handle this.”

To be honest, he hadn’t even realized that he had started, his wings ruffled as a gravelly voice asked, “Are the pretty birdies having fun at their slumber-party ?”

Both himself and Seraph jerked their heads towards the door. A huge, bald, tan-skinned man who was probably 6’5 or 6’7 in black-leather, fur-trimmed coat stood in the doorway. _‘That’s the bouncer from Club Hel, so, I really must be back in time because I killed him before Smith showed back up again.’_

“Does it truly matter to you that much, Romulus ?”

_‘Romulus ? So, he is one of those werewolves after all, if you by the fact that the one Niobe killed was called Cujo.’_

“I want to know if there’s something to watch to later on.”

_‘Watch ? Watch, he’s a freaking pervert.’_

Annoyed, he threw out a hand and willed Romulus out of the room. The werewolf was carried off his feet and out the door, then he manipulated the door’s code closed.

The next morning, Seraph was teaching him how to fly without slamming into another rock or killing himself. Flying with wings was a lot harder than telekinetic flight, as he curled his left wing to do a barrel roll and over-flapped on his upstroke…right into a downdraft with a girly scream as he lost control.

Seraph chuckled, “Tilt your secondary feather-tips downward and flap outward in a spiral.”

He blushed as he followed Seraph’s instructions. It had worried him how late Seraph had come back to the ‘Aviary’ as Romulus called his and Seraph‘s room. When the slightly shorter man had pulled off the blue-shirt, he’d seen bloody stripes shining in the moonlight on the tanned skin.

**Flash-forward**

It shocked him when Seraph pulled off the white jacket to show that the small of the tanned back was covered in barely visible scars. Then his gaze drifted up to the ex-angel programs back to see two shorter and bulkier scars in the center of Seraph’s shoulder blades.

Gently, he ran his fingertips over the scars, “Are you…okay now ? Do they still hurt sometimes ?”

There was a giggle and he looked down at Sati with a blush as he pulled his hand away. When he looked up the Oracle smiled and Seraph was watching him interestedly.

“It is only a few times in a year normally, otherwise I am fine, thank you, Neo.”

**End Flash-forward**

It seemed like seconds later that they were landing on the asphalt in front of the chateau. Romulus walked out of the house/castle with a few very familiar looking wolves in his stead.

“Did the birdies have fun on their flight ? I’ll bet you’re hungry, well, either way, I could eat and the Master wants you two in the main dinning-room.”

_‘Oh great, now I get to see that French idiot again. I hope Persephone is still likable, or, will be likeable now too. Either way, she’s better than her cheating, pervert husband.’_

When they walked into the main dinning-room, Persephone asked, “Who is this ? I was not aware that we had a new guest. Much less another angel like dear Seraph and a more powerful one than him if I am right.”

It still startled him as his wings rustled as he nodded, “My name is Neo and I’m an obsidian-tri-wing. Apparently, it means exactly what you think it means.”

Frenchie gestured for himself and Seraph to join them at the close end of the long table. Sunlight poured into the beige room with it’s multitude of windows that showed the drop hundreds of feet below. Seraph’s wings threw rainbows onto the table as they walked, while his own cast a mix of green and rainbows.

Instead of chairs at the other end, there were expensive, of course, highly carved obsidian stools so their wings wouldn’t get cramped, which his had been earlier this morning before his shower.

_‘My wings are probably going to be sore for a while, still I’ll take what I can get while I have them.’_


	2. Capture

Agent Smith slammed the emerald-obsidian-wing into the interrogation room white wall smearing it with a bit of blood from a head wound. As he looked closer he saw that it was not a fluke that it’s facial features looked suspiciously close to the neo tri-wing they were of the same version. The angelic program struggled in his grip as the wings beat frantically at his sides.

He grinned as it nearly lost consciousness and threw it onto the table. Jones and Brown restrained it’s wings as he picked up a scalpel. It screamed in anger, fear and pain as he started. As the older A.I. cried, it was quite a satisfying experience to imagine that it was the pretty one who had accompanied Seraph.

_‘Where did he come from ? There are no records of him and he is far too pretty to be a simple distraction. Seraph looked quite protective of him as well, a lover, perhaps ? Hmm, well, when I find them which of them should I clip first - Seraph or that Neo Angelus ? I do hope one of them screams and thrashes around trying to get to the other, it’s so much more entertaining and dramatic that way. They would look even prettier crying and screaming than normal. I do love the screams.’_

When it was done, he lifted it’s head, the dark-eyes were red-rimmed, and demanded, “Where are they ? Where is Seraph ? ! I won’t have that obsidian-wing escaping again because of those tea leaves.”

That incident still angered him the fact that he had arrived just in time to see one or two black-feathers floating down from the sky. Then there was the blood-covered neo from months ago, now, a blood-soaked white feather that time. He still had all three of them it wasn’t just the fact that they were motivation - they were incredibly soft as well.

_‘Hmm, even though I would not need it, it would be worth it to have a bed of angel feathers. I almost think I could keep that neo around for some off-duty entertainment. Those ‘warrior’ ones like Neo and Seraph, they would make good practice for Agents who have never seen true Angel programs before. Since winged-ones are so rare nowadays, or effectively hiding, at least. Perhaps, I could just take their wings off and hide the ex-angels themselves somewhere.’_

The now wingless and, therefore, truly exiled angel replied, “I don’t know ! I haven’t seen Seraph for months and what do you mean, “They.”, Seraph is a loner when he’s not with us.”

“He has a little Neo Angelus companion that is what my, “They.”, means. Perhaps you know something about…Neo, a tri-wing, I believe you call his wing type.”

When he mentioned that Neo was a tri-wing, the long black-haired A.I. froze. Angry when it suddenly refused to answer he grabbed a sliver of bone that protruded from it’s back and tore it out so hard that there was the sound of spine cracking and a brief spray of, more, blood…but no scream. It had bitten it’s lip to keep the sound in and he picked it up to take it to a holding cell.

Jones and Brown would deal with their growing collection of angel wings. Of all the teams that had clipped the angels of their wings, their team had the highest count since the actual Angel vs. Agent war at the end of the Nightmare-Matrix.

_‘It’s disappointing going from hunting angels to hunting rebels. At least, the angels are actually able to put up a fight.’_

Just after he had dumped the ex-angel onto the dirty floor, a piece of information came into his earpiece, “Disturbance - werewolf exiles and angels, one obsidian-wing, one tri-wing, fighting at Morris and Tamlin.”

_‘Perfect, just beautiful.’_

A minute later, he stood watching on the edge of Morris and Tamlin, under a redbrick buildings eve, as Seraph and the neo were fighting some werewolves in the rain. Neo was front kicking a big, bald werewolf before he swept a wing in and slammed the emerald-obsidian and pearl-feathered outer bone-edge into the ‘wolf’s skull who fell unconscious, if not dead.

One of the blond werewolves jumped on Neo’s back and then the order came, as Seraph flew off with a little girl, “Capture the tri-wing.”

With that, he pulled his Desert Eagle out and shot both werewolf and angel, before holstering the gun. As they crashed onto the street, he walked up and kicked the werewolf off Neo. Before he dropped on top of the angel, pinning those pretty, bloody wings against it’s back, and slid an arm under the pale, rain-slicked neck.

Movement underneath him and fingers digging at his forearm as he growled, “I found you, you stupid, pretty little thing. When we get to the Agency should we play a little game of Clip the Angel ?”

Choked laughter, “Couldn’t take me yourself, coward ? No wonder I won overall, again, fuck you, Smith.”

“Considering how many times you’ve said that, perhaps you actually want to do it.”

“Well, seeing how hard you are you wouldn’t mind me doing you.”

Hissed and knocked the black-haired angel out, before he got up. Then Seraph was slamming into him and lifting him twenty feet off the ground. “You forgot about the others !”

Seconds after he said that, he was being thrown through two walls and sliding to a stop. He shouted after the obsidian-wing, “I hope you won’t mind his being clipped, it’s personal you know.”

Before Seraph could fly back to fight him, he left for the Agency. _‘Oh, this is going to be fun.’_


	3. Clipping

Neo hoped as he opened his eyes that being knocked out had simply been a nightmare. Except then he felt cold metal around his chest, contrasting with the warmth of Seraph’s feather against his chest, and a calloused hand jerked his chin up and he was looking into Smith’s malicious smirking face.

_‘God, how I want to punch him. I know the Source code saved me after I helped the Machines delete him and if it sent me here, it’s got to be able to send me back…somehow. Even if Seraph thinks Smith killed me, I’d still get back to him.’_

He resisted the urge to grin and slammed his wings back into the other two Agents. Laughed as the two flew back from the force and heard the shatter of a very familiar looking interrogation room‘s mirror. “Gee, maybe you should’ve restrained me. Oh, wait, you’re not smart enough for that.”

Smith rolled his eyes exasperatedly, “I told them to move away from you.”, and as a tanned finger trailed over his bottom lip, he tried to bite it. Of course, Smith pulled the finger away before he could actually do it and he glared.

When the other two had jumped back into the room, Smith snapped, “Get the instruments.”

Just as quickly, the taller and shorter Agents exited using the door this time.

“You know, Seraph tried to **save** you from me. It really is too bad for you that his attempt failed, I really hoped that I would catch him too.”

**Flash-forward**

Seraph and he sat on the sun-warmed grass they’d been meditating. Again, he let out a slow exhale and then Seraph broke the silence with words, “Do you want to know why Smith fixated on you so much, Neo ?”

“Ah, sure, what’d ya figure out ?”

Seraph reached out to start drawing a pattern in the grass, “He told me it was because he was jealous. That he thought you looked like someone we both knew, someone who loved me and never loved him. Really, Smith wanted both of us even if he’d never admit to it aloud, he was jealous that we would have what he never did.”

“Well, maybe if he wasn’t such an arrogant, murderous ass he would’ve found someone who could stand him.”

They laughed and then Seraph wondered, “What do you think made his resolve so strong as to take over everything ?”

“I don’t know maybe it was just a crazies resolve instead of heart’s resolve or-”

Sati‘s shout of, “Neo, Seraph the Oracle and I made cookies, again.”, interrupted him.

“Well, we can’t miss a good cookie, can we ?”

Seraph gave a faint smile as he replied, “No, no we can’t.”, and helped him up.

** End flash-forward **

The memory made him laugh as he replied, “You’re fucking jealous of Seraph and I. You know what‘ll really piss you off, we’re together. Seraph **loves** me, not you, me.”

‘It might not be sex, but it doesn’t have to be, not with what that damn Frenchie is doing to my love. Seraph won’t be ready for any length of time and I’m glad he doesn’t think he’s got to force himself to do anything like that for me. Flying lessons were by far better than anything else, except actually getting to know even more about him.’

A backhand to the face was his reward for that and he spat a bit of blood onto the floor. The other Agents, who Seraph had said were called Jones and Brown he remembered now, walked back in with a silver briefcase. Even he couldn’t hold back the brief flash of fear as, after it was set down and opened, Smith pulled out a serrated knife with an absolutely sadistic smile.

The tallest Agent walked around the table, roughly grabbed his left wing, hard enough to pull feathers out and, obviously manipulated the code to unfold it through the chain, before stretching it out fully. Deliberately slow footsteps as Smith walked past the other Agent who then stretched out his right wing.

His pulse raced in his throat as cold steel brushed against his neck, over the leather cord and down his back. An involuntary flinch as it came to rest against the base of his right wing-bone, trying to pull it away was impossible without getting hurt. Dark laughter and then a shallow sting across the skin above it.

_‘Of course, the bitch is gonna drag it out. Ah, **fuck** , God, shit, so maybe he won’t. Goddamned son of a bitch that hurt. I’m not gonna cry, I’m not gonna cry, I am not going to give that fuck what he wants. This is what Seraph went through, except for him it was the damned Merovingian who did it.’_

Took a deep breath and blinked rapidly as fire scorched down his back, just like when he’d first gotten his wings. He felt the blood running down as the knife trailed a thin line across his back to the other wing-bone, a hand ran down to brace itself against the small of his back. This time the scream and the tears were involuntary as everything started to go black.

As the words, “A feather for you, my love ?”, echoed in his ears Smith was shameless enough to mockingly rain his own feathers down to land in his lap. Seconds later, everything was obliterated in a burst of bright-golden code.


	4. Feathers

Seraph’s back twitched and spasmed, phantom wings mantling as there was a thud outside the teahouse door. He ran towards it and opened it just fast enough to see Neo disappear in a burst of golden Source code, the obsidian-tri-wings wrapped tightly around himself.

_‘He’s going to lose them, why did this have to happen ? Just so, that Smith would have a reason to try to kill us ? I don’t even know what happened after Neo was caught, he, he might not come back. He **has** to come back, he must if only so I know that he’s all right besides the fact he lost his wings as well. My poor love, while I have had many years of getting used to being ‘Wingless’, he has not.’_

What was only seconds to him, but much, much longer to Neo there was another burst of Source code. Then Neo was slamming face-first onto the street in a cloud of loose feathers. He crouched down, blood covered the entire span of Neo’s back except for the top of his shoulder blades.

It made him smile, if slightly sadly, at Neo’s whisper of, “Ser-aph.” as he gently picked the one, now former human-angel, up.

“Ssh, ssh, I will find Marten and he will stop the bleeding. You will never have to see Smith again, remember ? You deleted him and he will never cut off another angel‘s wings ever.”

Marten’s voice came from a few feet away, “Actually, I’m right here and I’m supposed to tell you, Neo that eventually it will get better.”

The blind, dark-skinned program, who had turned to healing after he left the Oracle, smiled at himself and Neo. When he looked down at Neo, he saw the man had passed out, at least, Marten’s work would be easier.

Hours later, as he gently stroked Neo’s forehead, dark-brown eyes fluttered open filled with pain and loss. The first words that came out of Neo’s mouth were, “I feel wrong now, Seraph. I can still feel my wings, but their not there, God, Seraph, their not there. I miss my wings, I miss being able to flex and stretch and go flying with you.”

He nodded as he watched Neo’s gauze-covered back twitched, trying to mantle wings that no longer existed except as random feathers, “I miss flying too, when we flew together it was became some of my happiest memories after you never came back. If the Oracle had not approached me and told me that if I went with her I would find out what happened to you, I would have let the Merovingian kill me. That is why I took up protecting her besides the fact that I owed her my life, now, I also owe her the love of my life.”

Neo smiled slightly at his last sentence and then there was a knock on the door. Slowly, he got up and opened it to let the Oracle and Sati in.

The little black-haired girl smiled up at him, as he closed the door, “Oracle said that we should make extra cookies today, so, we made double chocolate.”

_‘A coincidence that those just happen to be Neo’s favourite ? I think not.’_

In response the Oracle replied, “I brought some candy too, and a few candles.”

Neo pushed himself up off the birch wood table to stand on the floor, “Why would you bring candles ?”

Sati ran up to hug Neo, who winced slightly before returning the hug, “It’s your birthday, don’t you remember ?”

“No, no I didn’t, well, let’s eat then.”

As they sat down at one of the tables, Sati bent down and picked up an emerald-green feather that had drifted inside. “Ooh, can I keep this ? It’s really pretty, please ?”

A faint chuckle from Neo, “Sure, you know it would make a nice decoration. You could make a pendant like I did with Seraph’s old feather.”

Neo leaned against him, his back twitched and he felt a phantom wing wrap around his love. They spent the rest of Neo’s birthday eating cookies and talking about little things.


End file.
